The Zoning Supercycle in Action: NYC’s “City of Yes”

New York City’s “City of Yes” is the closest thing the market has to a live zoning supercycle. It is not an abstract policy conversation; it is an active three-part rewrite of the city’s zoning DNA that is already changing where and how value is created.

Over 2023–2024, the City advanced three linked initiatives: City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality to remove barriers to clean energy and high-performance systems, City of Yes for Economic Opportunity to modernize rules for small business and production uses, and City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, approved in late 2024 and framed as the most sweeping housing-focused zoning reform in generations. Together, these moves shift zoning from static constraint to active growth engine, with Housing Opportunity alone projected to enable tens of thousands of new homes over the next decade and a half.

The real story for investors is in the details. Housing Opportunity eases parking requirements, unlocks more accessory units, simplifies office-to-residential conversions and, crucially, introduces new high-density residential districts that move beyond the long-standing 12 FAR ceiling. When your buildable envelope expands, land that never penciled suddenly supports a viable capital stack. You see this dynamic coming into focus in Midtown South Mixed-Use rezoning, where legacy manufacturing blocks are being remapped for modern mixed use with thousands of new homes, including income-restricted units, layered on top of an existing employment base.

Viewed through the Oliver Bennett Agency lens, City of Yes is not just about individual parcels; it is about the creation of long-term investment corridors. Added FAR, new mixed-use permissions and reduced friction for conversions create identifiable stretches of the city where valuation can step up in one cycle and compound over several more. Outer-borough commercial strips that once carried static, low-intensity retail can now host mixed-use infill and “missing middle” product; former manufacturing districts can evolve into live-work-innovation hubs aligned with transit and energy infrastructure.

This is happening in real time, and it is contested in real time. Litigation and neighborhood pushback underscore that City of Yes is not a paper exercise but a genuine shift in how density, infrastructure and equity are negotiated. That tension is exactly what defines a zoning supercycle: policy moves, markets respond, and the spread opens up between those who are reading headlines and those who are reading the map.

Oliver Bennett Agency sits on the intelligence side of that divide. We translate City of Yes text into corridor-level strategy, model FAR deltas into land value, and identify the blocks, districts and submarkets where zoning change, capital flows and infrastructure capacity align.

If City of Yes is on your radar but not yet in your underwriting, you are still in the “information” phase.